Negative thoughts flooded my mind. The EU is constantly trying to push Chat Control. They’re blocking bootloaders on phones, introducing ID and face scanning everywhere, in the US they’re trying to push system-level verification, corporations are spitting in our faces and don’t even hide it. I know we have to fight. My personal rebellion was joining Fediverse and Lemmy and quitting Reddit. But seriously, boss—I’m tired. Are our attempts to preserve internet freedom futile? Can we win against corporations and politicians who we pay but don’t listen to us?
I think moving away to decentealised means of connecting is the way. We already have things like Reticulum. If we invent a powerful and robust decentralised way of physical connection (like LoRa or HaLow but better) then we won’t need any corps - neither ISPe nor those that create web services for the ISP based network
You are definitely right, but I will caution that people are going to have to get used to a lot slower connectivity speeds and higher latency than we’ve been used to.
Max reticulum link is 40mbps, tor to onion services is like 5mbps, wifi halo is like 1-16mbps and MeshCore and Meshtastic are like ~20kbps max.
Centralized internet has gotten us used to speeds of hundreds of megabits per second and latency of 10s of ms, and that’s just not possible when decentralizing systems, at least not right now.
at least not right now.
I think this is the key point. Decentralised alternatives begin as slower and less ergonomic, but over time, when more people use them, they should catch up on the proprietary solutions. The massive transition from Windows to Linux that has been happening lately is a good example of that IMO. It’s only us who can help these initiatives grow after all.
Just do your part and don’t get discouraged. You don’t have to do everything. Walk the walk, talk the talk. If things don’t work out, at least you tried; that’s more than the majority did.
Do what you do no because of some expected local or global outcome, but because it’s right.
i wish i had spent more time on the “pessimism of the spirit; optimism of the will” part before i started to learn about leftism; i’m in a funk rn because there’s a seemingly impenetrable gulf between where we are as a society and where we think we are and it’s making me want to give up.
Do you believe “left-wing” ideologies are more negative?
it’s that society tolerates casual brutalities that are innate to right-wing ideologies that is negative to me.
How do you even type an em-dash?
Most word processors do it for you If you type space dash space then any letter, it will convert the dash to an emdash when the letter is typed.
I use Heliboard – on Android — which has a lot of different dashes when you long·press the -regular- dash.
With Linux you can use the compose key or some key combinations, usually with a modifier like AltGr or Shift+Alt.
Lemmy lets me do it by typing three hyphens - - - without spaces—like this.
But I really don’t see a reason to use anything other than a hyphen - it shows I’m human!
oh—that’s neat!
Yea I thought this was a bot, 5 hour old account and such a weird first post containing an em-dash. Glad I was mistaken!
Alt + 0151 (on the num pad)
Or just press Ctrl + Alt + -
That doesn’t work, try ctrl + alt + del
yes, but not in the west, obviously. you’re describing imperialist colonizers as if they somehow should be the beacon against the panopticon? my brother in christ, they created the panopticon. as the empire collapses, living conditions worsen and the crisis deepens, they’ll enforce more and more policies that reveal their true face: fascism. we have a chance, we as in the global south.
Why do you think the global south will be unaffected by fascism? If there is a rise of surveillance capitalism and fascism they’ll try to suppress foreign people with other viewpoints.
im not saying that it won’t but op is talking about this issue and referencing imperialist countries for hope, they created this, why do you think the hope would be there? i don’t understand what’s the privacy community obssession over ewwrope at all, all of those countries are part of the 3/5/8/16/32 eyes. they are the ones pushing age verification even if some other countries also apply it.
Brazil is part of the global south, and together with the US, they are pushing age verification at the systemic level, just to mention
Read the Communist Manifesto. Thank me later
The zillion dollar question. The control freaks do their job and have lots of power, but on the other hand the diversity of responses is immense. Things change: it’s evolution. Be smart, adapt, and don’t forget that a better tomorrow for each and all is possible, day after day.
All things that go up must come down. Icarus’ wings will melt from the sun’s heat. The web will crumble under the weight of llm bots. Markets will crash due to llm’s not living up to their hype. Big tech will be broken up. Billionaires and the trillionaire will be taxed to death. Regulators will lose interest. Let’s have hope.
This made me so hot. Pure smut.
all long after you die; i wish i could take pleasure from knowing that people that i have zero relation to will get to enjoy this reality.
Oh ye of little faith
pretty much and it makes me wish that i had started with the whole pessimism-of-the-intellect-optimism-of-the-will perspective first.
It has been written! Now we wait
he is no longer a trillionair. Don’t forget that.
Billionaire or trillionaire is irrelevant. He’s still a dumbass
But seriously, boss—I’m tired. Are our attempts to preserve internet freedom futile?
Nah, we’re fine. It’s just that serious secrecy is a lot more effort and I’d rather not need that. But we do have all the tools.
That’s 80% of the frustration for me. They have already lost that fight for control when they legalized encryption. Now the cat is out of the bag.
For example, encrypting things and hiding them in normal pictures and posts. Using code words in normal online interactions, woven into sentences where there is nothing to decrypt and the message only makes sense to people looking for a message.
Properly executed encryption isn’t just indistinguishable from regular white noise, if it’s mixed into a channel already carrying a message, an observer not looking for something will never see the difference.
You mean stenography, not encryption. Which would be possible even if it’d be illegal.
Like what the court stenographer types? That stenography?
LOL, the autocorrect 🤓 steganography*, sorry!
He/she meant steganography.
Yeah, amazing autocorrect fail.
Happens to me all the damn time.
Time to help build a new type of network: https://reticulum.network/
I have experience in programming and building computer systems. 12 years of experience and self-education. The project you linked looks promising. I’m always the first to support and contribute to such projects but we lack infrastructure for this to become a thing
Great! Here’s the thing: power will not build this network, people must. Node by node. You alone can service an decent area with $100 LoRa node and an I2P backhaul. I fundamentally believe something like this is essential for a free future — be the change you want to see.
And what happens if governments start banning cryptography or force backdoors on crypography?
Agreed. And we can easily bridge existing net to alternative transmission mediums while the existing net allows. Providing an easier time for others to adopt. I run a reticulum node as well.
We can even start community VPN and use site to site VPN to build a new internet!
Running a node myself and it’s fun!
Of course we can win against politicians who we pay but don’t listen to us. At some point, this is not democracy anymore, and if this is not democracy anymore, then the people is going to express itself through non-democratic measures. Just saying.
Until then, we have work to do: convince friends, family, politicians. Expose lobbyist, corporations. Support education, spread knowledge.
But seriously, boss—I’m tired
Unfortunately, that’s their game plan: be an unrelenting bureaucracy that grinds you down so you eventually just give in and finally accept it as it is now then passively accept what they come up with next.
We dont got good stories. We aint winning the masses. So Id say no.
I’m already tempted to resort to wild violence, since we are being pushed out of the last bit of freedom we have. I’m about to get diagnosed and the business has a good chance of succeeding, at which point I can push peaceful measures. I hope I’m not forced to do what I have to, because if I die, my father is infamous for some things, and I’m fairly sure he will leave far more bodies than I ever could.
He has an actual squad of ex-special force buddies.
Overall, someone is getting fucked, one way or another. We can’t just let them push extralegal bullshit on us with no resistance.
I’m trying to actuate the peaceful plan rn, but I’m squeezed so badly already. No one can do you in as much as your own family, I got into so much debt bailing them, and looking for a second job.
We have to keep fighting, and it isn’t easy but we have been building great things! Look at the growth of the fediverse with projects like mastodon, Lemmy, pixelfed, etc. More and more, people want alternatives to surveillance-capitalist social media platforms. They see the value in privacy as the stakes get higher for activists. Keep fighting, keep sharing.
Now, I also believe that ultimately we cannot solve political problems with technical solutions. We need to organize online and offline to effect real change. This organization must be multifaceted (“diversity of tactics”). A recent success of this type has been rolling back flock surveillance in municipalities around the US. Go to city council meetings with your neighbors. If the council won’t listen, then go out later with a comrade and smash those fucking things.
Yes.
